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International Awards Season to Continue With Limited Oscar Winners' Presence

Hollywood awards season may be over, but the German Film Awards, Italy's Donatellos and the Asian Film Awards are yet to be handed out.

Hollywood awards season may have come to an end with Sunday night's Oscars, but international awards season will continue in the coming weeks. Some Oscar winners are expected to be vying for more trophies, but their presence is expected to be limited.

Among the proud European film nations set to honor their best of the past year are Germany and Italy. The ceremony for the German Film Awards, also known as the "Lolas," will be held in Berlin on April 26 after final nominations March 22. And the Academy of Italian Cinema will hand out the David di Donatello Awards in June, unusually late this year, followed by the Nastri d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) awards July 6.

While the film is an Austrian-French-German co-production, Michael Haneke's Amour won't be adding to its impressive awards tally at the Lolas. Haneke declined to submit Amour for consideration at the Austrian Film Awards earlier this year, saying the honor should go to up-and-coming filmmakers. And he did the same thing for the more competitive Lolas.

Meanwhile, Austrian-born Christoph Waltz, who holds a German passport, also will have to make do with his second Oscar. Django Unchained won't qualify for the German Film honors. Back in 2009, there was speculation that Waltz might get a Lola nomination for his Oscar-winning role in Inglourious Basterds but that film, despite being a German co-production, also was considered too Hollywood for the local event.

The Donatellos will honor the best Italian films of the year but also have categories for the best European and foreign film, providing opportunities for Amour and U.S. Oscar winners, such as Argo, potentially to compete for honors.

U.K. awards season is pretty much over following the annual highlight of the BAFTA Awards. But the 18th annual Jameson Empire Awards will unveil nominees Friday and celebrate its winners March 24. Voted for by the public, they are a chance to celebrate popular films that mostly were ignored by this weekend’s Oscars. Skyfall is widely expected to win some of the awards.

Meanwhile, Swedish music documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which won the best documentary Oscar on Sunday, already took home the same prize at Stockholm's Guldbagge Awards, Sweden's Oscar equivalent. But Sugar Man could earn another trophy at Denmark's Bodil Awards, held next month, where it is nominated -- alongside Amour -- in the best non-American film category. Best picture winner Argo is the odds-on favorite to take home the Bodil for best American film.

Danish period drama A Royal Affair, which lost out to Amour at the Oscars, is hoping for a sweep of the local honors – where it is nominated in six categories, including best Danish film.

Meanwhile, in Asia, the Hong Kong Film Awards on April 13 will follow the Asian Film Awards, which take place March 18.

At the Asian Film Awards, South Korean director Yoon Jong-bin’s crime epic Nameless Gangster: Rules of Time and art-house favorite Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta were among key nominees.

The awards have strict guidelines about what constitutes an Asian film, and Ang Lee's Life of Pi, which led the Oscar winners with four honors Sunday, is not among the nominees.

But Indian crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 & 2, directed by Anurag Kashyap, earned four nominations, including for best film and best director.

At the Hong Kong awards, police thriller Cold War, from first-time co-directors Sunny Luk and Longman Leung, and 1930s-set suspense thriller The Bullet Vanishes from Lo Chi-leung are seen as the frontrunners. The two movies are competing in the best picture and director, as well as most of the acting categories. The former’s star Tony Leung Ka-fai will try to keep the latter’s Lau Ching-wan from repeating his best actor win from last year, which recognized his performance in Johnnie To’s Life Without Principle.

Both films were commercial successes, with wins from them potentially mirroring the success of big-studio fare at the Oscars. Cold War was the highest-grossing Hong Kong production of 2012 and the fifth-highest-grossing Chinese-language production in mainland China. The Bullet Vanishes just missed out on making mainland China’s top 10 box office ranking for last year.

Meanwhile, Zhou Xun (Cloud Atlas) is a double-nominee in the best actress category at the Hong Kong honors for her work in The Great Magician and The Silent War.

Stuart Kemp in London and Clarence Tsui in Hong Kong contributed to this report.